They say there are times in a person’s life when their true character comes out — the birth of a first child, an unexpected death, sudden wealth.

So, what does it say about Gordon Ramsay that — when it came time for him to pick someone just like himself to be a judge on “Masterchef” — he picked restaurant owner Joe Bastianich.

Part of the appeal of “Masterchef,” Fox’s “American Idol“-like competition for home cooks, is that it forced the frantic Ramsay to calm down.

Unlike “Hell’s Kitchen” or “Kitchen Nightmares,” Ramsay’s more established shows, he does not have to do all the heavy lifting on “Masterchef.”

Or, more precisely, be the heavy.

That’s what he hired Bastianich to do.

And it has worked. The show, now finishing its second summer (the two-hour finale is tomorrow night), has yet to find its Omarosa.

But Bastianich has emerged as “Masterchef’s” standout figure this year — a blue-eyed, unsmiling Simon Cowell, if Simon had grown up in Bayside.

Joe’s shaved head and perpetually folded arms are visual shorthand — advertisements — for a drill-sergeant personality meant to intimidate the law-firm dropouts and stay-at-home dads who make up the show’s cast.

Off-screen, Bastianich protests that it’s just character he puts on for the cameras — but how would he know?

“I’ve never watched the show,” he told The Post last week. “Not one episode.

“Ramsay told me never to watch the show. He doesn’t.”

The news that Ramsay never sees himself on TV explains a lot, when you think about it.

But even Bastianich, 42 and the father of three, can’t explain why his biggest fans seem to be kids.

“I just got back from an appearance in San Diego, and there had to be 40 kids there” expressly to meet him, he said last week. “I was blown away.”

The son of TV chef Lydia Bastianich, Joe owns several restaurants, including Becco’s in the Theater District and Eataly, the Italian market in the Flatiron District, with her.

But his main partner is another TV chef, the ebullient Mario Batali, whom he’s known since his early 20s. Together, they own more than a dozen restaurants in New York, LA and Las Vegas, including Babbo in the West Village and Del Posto in Chelsea.

For most of their partnership, Joe had been the inside man of the operation.

That ended when Ramsay hired him for “Masterchef” two years ago.

Bastianich is just back from Italy, where he taped an Italian version of the show.

Joe owns three wineries in northern Italy, but no restaurants. Why does that matter? Because it signifies that — like Ramsay — he is now better known as the “Masterchef” guy who owns restaurants than as the restaurant guy who’s on “Masterchef.”